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Cultivating Contentment in a Lust Filled World

In our world of social media, HGTV, and beach body mamas it’s so easy to fall into the trap of being discontent. Comparing ourselves to others or the unrealistic perception we have of others makes our heart yearn to be like them, to have what they have, to do what they do.

Humanity is in a constant battle of lust; the intense desire for more. We want what we don’t have, and we want it now. This attitude is not only reserved for stuff. We, as moms, can pretty much be discontent about anything and everything our marriage, children, money, house, body the list goes on.

We find ourselves making statements like, “if only” or “when I get ‘this'” then I’ll be happy.

Sadly as we fall into discontentment, our joy goes right along with it. The constant chase for contentment only breeds more discontentment. It’s a vicious cycle.

In our sinful nature, it is never enough, and it will never be enough. We need to learn to be content and fulfilled completely with Christ.

How to Raise Productive Kids

If you want a job done right, you should do it yourself. I’m sure you’ve heard that saying but does this have to be true? I often find myself trying to do every job in my house. singlehandedly. Unfortunately, I am completely outnumbered. Nine people live in my house, and I’m just one person fighting against all of them quite frequently.

It is imperative for our children to learn to help. However, I find myself getting frustrated because they aren’t doing things exactly how I would. Even worse, I catch them shirking a responsibility that they know exactly how to do. It’s a job in and of itself just to inspect what they are doing.

One day their bosses, spouses, children, even they will thank you if you teach them while they are young how to work hard and do a job well.

Today, I want to share some of my favorite tips on how I get my troops assembled to do a job to the best of their ability.

God's Provision Looks a Lot Like a Church Van

About 5 minutes after my son had left for work I get a phone call from him. In the world of texting getting an honest to goodness phone call from your 17 year old usually means something bad has happened. Mother’s intuition was right once again. He was indeed in a car accident. Thankfully no one was injured, but our poor van was in pretty rough shape.

Amongst all of the phone tag with insurance companies and scrambling to find us a rental car to fit our large family, I started to have fear creep into my heart and mind it sounded something like this. “You know the van is probably totaled, and you totally can’t afford to buy a new car right now. What are you going to do? How are you going to survive? This weekend is such a crazy weekend. Why this weekend? Why not another time because you know there are definitely better times to have accidents. How is this all going to work out? This was not in your plans for this weekend.”

Summertime Scheduling Tips and Ideas

Summer is fast approaching. And with that, our kids will be spending much more unstructured time together. This proposition comes with its positives and negatives. Many of my homeschooling friends are anxious for the break from such a strict regimented schedule. Although most of us are still doing at least something educational through the summer, it is hopeful with a little less responsibility.

While this break is nice to have, we have a mantra in our house. “Responsibility before Recreation.” What that means is before we are allowed to do something fun we need to have our responsibilities finished.

I have found that even though it’s summer we need to have some structure still in place for our day. If not chaos and mayhem ensue. Pretty quickly I realize my children don’t always like each other and the bickering starts. I’m not a creative genius by any means but from trial and lots of error I’ve had to come up with a plan for our summer, so we all survive unscathed.

5 Tips and Encouragements for Potty Training

As a new mom, I remember when my first daughter was 18 months old, and the pressure to start potty training was all around. Even with the influence I held off until about two before starting.

When we began the process, I decided to reward our daughter with candy. Every time she used the potty she got candy. Well as you can imagine she decided that she needed to go quite frequently.

After we had her “trained”, we ran out of candy, so my husband decided that she no longer needed candy. Well needless to say my daughter thought otherwise, and she decided after being trained for months that she would stop. Completely.